


been everywhere but here

by flowermasters



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, First Time, Loss of Virginity, Sparring as foreplay, handwavey use of contraceptive implants, minor appearances by spacekru, the usual, time jump fic, unrealistically nice first time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 11:36:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14768838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowermasters/pseuds/flowermasters
Summary: Echo isn't sure how to handle the evolution of their relationship; Bellamy isn't that much better off, really.





	been everywhere but here

**Author's Note:**

> Don't mind me, I'm just over here a) procrastinating on a weird Memori fic I've been working on for like two weeks and b) ignoring every single person with a "realistic" outlook on Becho.
> 
> Warnings for: sexual content, loss of virginity (as defined by modern standards). Minor mentions of Echo's Black Widow-esque past, although the emotional trauma she suffered is mostly implicit. They'll deal with it, eventually.

Echo doesn’t know when, or how, or why, or even _what_ , precisely, but something has changed.

She has been sparring with Bellamy every morning for two years now—since just a few months after Praimfaiya, when they were both so sick with boredom that fighting until they were exhausted passed the time better than anything else. She spars with Bellamy in the mornings, and usually with Raven in the evenings; the others are far less consistent about it, although Bellamy has encouraged them all to learn to defend themselves again and again. “Echo’s the best fighter you guys will ever meet, hopefully—you might as well take advantage,” he’d said at the dinner table once, only to be largely ignored. She admires the effort.

He’s easily the best opponent available to her, although Raven has continued to improve in the year since she began daily training sessions. Sparring is the one thing, though, that Echo has always been the best at, at least on the Ark; keeping herself, and others, in fighting shape for their return to the ground is her most constant contribution to the survival of the group. With Bellamy, though, there’s always been an element of competition, as well as a subtler kind of energy under her skin that she eventually came to realize was sheer _enjoyment_.

It’s not the only time she spends with him, of course. They see each other at meals, and it’s not like they don’t run into each other multiple times a day or share chores. Lately, they’ve fallen into the habit of taking a walk around the Ring after dinner. But sparring is special.

“What do you always say?” Bellamy says now, swatting at her left ear; she jerks out of reach, but it’s a near thing. “‘Get out of your head?’”

“You can repeat my words, but you can’t learn from them?” Echo challenges. In the first months, Bellamy always hedged his blows—wary of hurting her, or simply too caught up in planning his next move to finish the one he was on. Raven was the same, at first. Echo has had to tell them both to _just move_ perhaps dozens of times.

He’s right, though, and he knows it, judging by his brief grin. She is distracted today.

Bellamy feints as though for a strike, but Echo dodges the kick he means to knock her off her feet with. “You must try harder than that.”

“Get your head in the game and maybe I’ll have to,” Bellamy says, drawing back, probably to get a better look at her. “What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing,” Echo says, prowling to the left. Bellamy moves to the right, their movements perfectly synchronized. He’s too smart for his own good sometimes.

“Must be something,” he says. “Because I’ve been kicking your ass all morning.”

“You have not,” Echo snaps. He’s barely landed three blows, and he hasn’t gotten her to the floor once in the hour since they began. Granted, she hasn’t landed many hits, either. She’s been dodging, staying out of his reach, though she generally adopts a more aggressive fighting style.

He smirks; he was baiting her. “Didn’t mean to hit a nerve.”

She launches herself at him before she can think the decision through, which means he has no time at all to prepare. With the element of surprise, she can bring a much larger body down to the floor easily, and she does just that now.

The landing knocks the wind out of him, and she quickly straddles his thighs, gripping his forearms so that he can’t simply shove her off. Bellamy thrashes automatically, still trying to get his breath back, but Echo holds on. Then Bellamy pauses, going not quite still, but definitely slowing his movements, his muscles relaxing slightly.

For a few seconds, they’re both breathing quickly, looking straight at one another. Echo has been avoiding his eyes, she realizes, all morning—just like she’s been avoiding his touch. Now, though, she can’t look away, even as she’s simultaneously too aware of the strength of his thighs between her own legs, the rise and fall of his chest, the urge to press herself against him. He looks up at her, his gaze clear and steady, without the mischief or the challenge she expects to find there.

She can tell he’s about to move before he does—his eyes narrow slightly, jaw clenching, giving himself away—but she almost doesn’t fight it. Instead of just pushing her off, as she expects, he flips them over. He doesn’t slam her down as he easily could, instead rolling haphazardly to a stop and landing on top of her on the floor. She’s still gripping his forearms, and without permission, her legs crook around his thighs.

He leans in, expression thoughtful, and she closes her eyes instinctively, but the kiss is somehow still a surprise. He’s tense against her, like he expects to be stopped, but she can’t stop this now. This is what she’s been wanting—craving—every time she pinned him down, every time he grabbed hold of her waist, every time she felt his breath on her neck. Craving this, and more, for years. Perhaps it feels as though it’s gotten suddenly worse because he wants it now, too.

If he can guess at her inexperience, it doesn’t stop him. The longer they kiss, the more she needs of it, and he delivers. When he bites at her lower lip, and then sucks on it gently, she rocks up against him without thinking, legs tightening around him—

“Shit,” he says, when they break for air. He seems surprised, more than anything, but not in a bad way. She follows his mouth, catching his lips again.

At some point, she lets go of his arms, perhaps to close the space between their chests; he grinds his hips down against her in response, and she gasps against his mouth without meaning to. Her cheeks heat with embarrassment, but then, she’s already warm all over, and Bellamy didn’t seem to mind it, anyway. He keeps grinding against her, the movement infuriatingly slow and steady, and breaks their kiss to mouth at her neck. Without his mouth against hers to focus on, she runs her hands up and down his back, his sides, through his hair.

“You sure about this?” Bellamy asks, his words muffled against her jaw, which he’s in the midst of kissing. His voice has gotten slightly hoarse, like it does when they’ve run each other ragged in the sparring area, which—she supposes—is not altogether different from what they’re doing now.

 _No_ , she doesn’t say, _but I don’t care anymore_.

“Bellamy,” she says instead, although she’s not sure where she’s going with any of this, “I need—”

He looks up at her, and to save herself from having to be watched like this, she kisses him again. She tries biting his lip like he’d done hers, which makes him groan, not entirely—or even mostly—from pain. She knows what Bellamy’s wounded noises sound like.

“Yeah,” he says, after a few moments of this. “Okay.”

He pulls back just far enough to wriggle a hand between them, his mouth returning to her neck just as his hand slips past the waistband of her leggings.

This much, at least, she can do to herself—and has before, though not often. His fingers find the slickest part of her—when did she get so slick, she wonders deliriously—and then, quickly, the most sensitive. Her leggings and underwear necessarily inhibit the movement of his hand, but when she grimaces, he gentles his touch immediately. It doesn’t take much of the steady, quick circling of his thumb for her to come, sudden and sharp, with an embarrassing little cry.

He withdraws his hand when she gasps, oversensitive. “Good?” he asks.

She can’t tell if he means _you good_ , which is how he sometimes asks if she’s alright, or if he’s asking whether _it_ was good. Either way, the answer should be obvious, so she doesn’t answer. Now she’s the one reaching between them, charging ahead before she can hesitate, though she has to fumble with the button and zipper of his pants for a moment before she gets them undone.

She doesn’t try to undress him, mostly because she doesn’t want to waste time. Some small part of her is very aware of where they are, in an open space that any one of the others could walk into.

“Do me a favor and spit in your palm,” he says, at the first, tentative stroke of her hand. Befuddled, she complies, although it doesn’t take her long to figure out why he’d asked. With her grip slicker and growing bolder, Bellamy hides his heavy breaths against her neck, as if suddenly shy. She doesn’t mind; it gives her the opportunity to kiss at his neck, to bite down gently but firmly when she feels him finish.

In the few seconds of quiet stillness that follow, Echo can feel herself trying to think, but she refuses to allow it. Not yet. She’s still burning, could stay in this position forever, but it’s a slower burn now. As soon as this moment ends, this entire thing will feel like a dream, but for now, she’s still in it.

For once, she can’t intuit what will happen next. _Just move_.

Bellamy shifts slightly, enough to pull a handkerchief from his pocket, which he offers to her. Their eyes meet for a second as she takes it; he smiles, and she smiles back, startled. He kisses her again, and it’s a long time before he pulls away.

There are voices from down the corridor. Echo hears them first, and her face must give it away, because Bellamy’s eyes widen. He lifts himself off her quickly, then holds out a hand to her to tug her to her feet. Once standing, she feels disoriented for a split second, though it’s more of a mental disorientation than a physical one. The voices in the hall draw steadily closer until Monty, Harper, and Raven round the corner, talking amongst themselves.

“Hey,” Raven greets. Echo crumples Bellamy’s handkerchief up in her hand, as though that is somehow the most damning evidence of what has just taken place. “You guys about done killing each other yet?”

“Never,” Bellamy says, as Echo says, “Yes.” She shoots him an uneasy look, but he only smiles.

* * *

She doesn’t see Bellamy again till dinnertime, which is intentional, at least on her part. The last thing she wants to do is give the others any indication of what had happened that morning. Each of the others would respond in their own, predictable way. Murphy would make jokes. Emori would smile in that sly way of hers, the way that let you know she was making jokes of her own, under her breath to Murphy. Raven would be less incessant about it than those two, but no less smug. Harper, in her well-meaning way, would ask questions that Echo can’t even imagine being asked, let alone answering. Monty alone would probably hold his tongue, at least to her face.

Everyone else is relatively talkative at dinner, which saves Echo from having to speak much. The one time she catches Bellamy’s eye across the table, he smiles, before looking away at Raven when she speaks to him. Something strange and pleased curls up in her chest at this.

As they clear their plates, Echo hears Harper and Emori talking of an evening poker game; Echo declines to join, although she’s not entirely sure why. Nobody seems to think much of it, and the usual _good night_ s are exchanged before she leaves the room.

A minute’s worth of dragging her feet means she isn’t far down the corridor when she hears footsteps behind her. She turns, although she can tell by the weight of the thudding boots that it’s Bellamy, coming after her.

“You alright?” he asks, once he’s within about five feet of her.

“Of course,” she says, turning again as he reaches her side. “I just didn’t feel like playing, that’s all.” She begins to walk, and he falls into step beside her. Their walks usually take place after the nightly card games, when all the others have returned to their respective rooms for the night. There’s only so far they can go on the Ring before they return to the others, which means this journey has a clear end. Echo keeps her pace as slow as she can.

“I’m sure you noticed, but you gave me a nice hickey,” Bellamy says wryly. “Emori definitely noticed, I saw her looking. I don’t know about anybody else.”

“What?” Echo says, looking at him immediately. He turns his head, baring the other side of his neck, and her eyes instantly fall on the purplish-pink bruise on his skin.

Immediately, she thinks of her own neck; she hasn’t had cause to look at herself in a mirror all day. He must read this in her face, because he looks like he’s suppressing a smile. “Yeah, you’ve got one, too,” he says, in a fake-serious tone. “A little lower, though.”

He reaches out, the tips of his fingers just barely brushing the base of her throat before he withdraws them. “Not as bad, though,” he says. “You bite harder, I guess.”

She stops walking. He does, too. “Sorry,” she says, watching him.

“Don’t be,” he says, and kisses her.

It’s like they never stopped, with how quickly desire washes over her; it’s been seconds and already she’s running her hand through his hair, her tongue in his mouth, greedy. That same part of her that warned herself to be cautious can’t believe how quickly she’s lost control.

Bellamy pulls back after a moment. His eyes are dark, his gaze heavy as it rests on her. He looks from her eyes to her mouth and back again. “We shouldn’t do this here.”

Echo swallows, nods. His room is slightly closer, and he must have reached the same conclusion, because that’s where he leads her. He unlocks his door, adjusts the lights to semi-brightness, and shuts the door behind her before he looks at her, and a wave of it hits her again, that feeling. He must feel it, too, this strange, out-of-control want, because he starts crowding her forwards as soon as the door auto-locks, kissing her, tangling his fingers in her loose hair and tugging slightly, probably unaware that he’s doing so.

The backs of her thighs hit the edge of the mattress, and she has the wherewithal to cast a hand behind her before she separates from him long enough to sit down, making sure that she’s not about to fall off the bed. She scoots backwards, making room, and Bellamy follows her down.

This time, she realizes, their clothes can come off—and they do, first Bellamy’s shirt, then her own, then the tank top she wears under her shirt during the day. She’s never adjusted to the bras that the Skaikru women wear, although she understands their use. Strangely enough, she’s not uncomfortable being unclothed in front of him, although she supposes he’s already seen her little more than naked before—a thought she does not dwell on. At some point amidst the rolling about and kissing—Bellamy seems very appreciative of her breasts, which she doesn’t mind—he tugs down her leggings, which she permits without pausing to think about it. It’s only when he begins to drag his kisses downward, over her stomach and toward the hem of her underwear, that her heart does a funny little skip in her chest.

“What are you doing?” she asks, the question popping out of her mouth before she can think better of it. Her voice sounds frustratingly breathy, even to her own ears.

“I’ve been thinking about eating you out all day,” Bellamy murmurs, as though this is the most normal thing in the world to say out loud. Echo flushes with some combination of embarrassment and lust. It’s a comfort to know that he probably cannot tell by this light.

“Is that so,” she says, keeping her voice much steadier this time.

Something about this makes him glance up at her. “Unless you don’t want me to.”

Echo frowns. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know,” Bellamy says. His expression, she notes, is that carefully neutral one he adopts when he thinks something might go wrong if he doesn’t tread carefully. “Some like it, some don’t.”

Echo swallows. She doesn’t want to think of others he must’ve been with like this, so she doesn’t, burying the thought under everything else. Her brain feels just foggy enough that she can think of nothing else to say besides, “I don’t know. I’ve never . . .”

He’s still looking up at her, and she resists the urge to shift under the scrutiny, until he carefully crawls up so that he is at face-level again. She thinks he’s going to kiss her again, but instead he asks, “Never what?”

Echo kisses him; he responds, but remains ultimately undeterred, pulling back after a moment. He looks at her in that way of his, the one that makes her feel like a particularly time-consuming but ultimately unchallenging puzzle, which would infuriate her if she didn’t suspect that she sometimes looks at him the same way. _What_ , he’ll say sometimes, when she’s looked at him for too long, his voice purposefully light. _Something wrong with my face?_

“It’s not important.”

“Maybe not,” Bellamy agrees. “But I want to know.”

Echo huffs, impatient and frustrated and nervous all at once. He wants a story, she can tell. He is large and distracting where he lies halfway on top of her, but she can tell he’s not going to give up. Her alternatives are to leave or to give in, and she wants one even less than the other.

Where to begin? With the childhood lessons she got on seduction, as it would be employed by a spy? There were many secrets that could be taken by force, but some situations required a much gentler touch, especially if the preservation of peace was one’s goal. She had never had to use such tactics—had always had the fortune to be able to get what she needed for Queen Nia through subterfuge or violence or both—but she remembers the lessons like she remembers all the others. She had been kneeling on a stone floor, listening quietly and absorbing everything, as she always did. _Never let a man finish inside you, if you can help it_. _Fake pleasure, if it suits the situation. You’re pretty enough: it will be all too easy for you._

She doesn’t think Bellamy would like to hear about that now, though. He has a funny way of reacting on the rare occasions when her training for the Royal Guard has come up; it’s not quite judgment, or pity, but there’s something of each in the way his brows draw together slightly, gaze going serious every time.

“On the ground, there’s no way to keep from making a baby,” Echo says finally, because this, at least, _is_ important. “It’s better to not risk it at all, in my view.”

There were ways to end a pregnancy, of course—herbs and such. Besides, some could not conceive at all; births were frequent enough, but many went childless. She has learned from her time with Skaikru that infertility is one of many possible side-effects from exposure to radiation, be it in the food, the water, the air. Still, it was a risk.

“That’s fair,” Bellamy says. He shifts then, moving his right hand to the inside of his upper left arm. At his look, she does the same, touching his arm where he indicates. There’s some kind of ridge under his skin, tiny enough to be missed unless you knew where to touch. “But I have an implant. I got it replaced not too long before we left the ground, so it’s still good. If you wanted to do that.”

That’s good to know, at least, even if she still really does not want to think of why he would have needed such a thing, years ago. Gina is still a ghost between them sometimes, although they have not spoken of her in a long time.

“So nobody’s ever tried anything on you?” Bellamy asks. She’s still got her hand on his bicep, stroking idly at the skin. She’s always liked his arms. His arms, and his hands, and his shoulders, and the line of his jaw. It’s just been easier to ignore, before now. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Why’s that?” Echo asks, a bit tersely.

“Because you’re gorgeous, for one,” Bellamy says. Echo wills herself not to smile. “And some people get off on danger.”

Echo huffs with amusement. _Get off_ is not a euphemism she’s familiar with, but the context is crystal clear. She wonders if by _some people_ he means himself.

“There was one,” she says finally, when Bellamy seems to be waiting for a response. “Years ago. We kissed and—touched. That was all there was time for.”

He was a novitiate of the Guard, too—only a little bit older than her, so they had known each other for years. They had been barely more than children, simultaneously frustrated and interested with their own bodies and everyone else’s, besides. But that was not like this, not at all, and she hasn’t thought of him in years.

“Where’d they end up?” Bellamy asks, although it’s not like there are many options.

“I don’t know,” she says. “He died, probably. He disappeared years ago.”

Into the Mountain, maybe, or killed, or simply run off, if he got tired of the Guard. With no ritual scarring, it would have been easy enough for a trained spy to slip into another clan without being noticed. Either way, the odds are he’s long dead now. It isn’t worth dwelling on.

“Well,” Bellamy says. “If I’d known, I would’ve—”

When Echo raises her eyebrows at him, he finishes, “—been a little more careful, is all.”

That’s precisely what she doesn’t want—for him to be careful with her, to treat her like she’s some young and fragile thing because she’s never spread her legs for anybody before—or, more precisely, never let anybody get close enough to make it a possibility. But she’s spread her legs for him, without question, and—

“We don’t have to do anything,” Bellamy says. His hands—large and slightly callused, but still softer than her own from the gentle treatment of childhood in the sky—slide along the sides of her ribcage, down to her flanks. His eyes are large and dark, their rings of brown almost black in the low light. “But I’d still really like to eat you out.”

Echo swallows, but this time, it’s not from nerves. “Go on, then.”

Something about the sight of him with her underwear in his hand, the scrap of fabric balled up only to be cast aside onto the blankets, makes her shiver. When he pulls her legs over his shoulders by the thighs, she gasps. When he first licks into her, she gasps again, louder than before.

She’s not sure if she likes this, at first; it’s strange, foreign, but not unpleasant. When he slides one finger inside her, then another, she squirms, wary of the sensation. She watches his face, although it feels like she should look away; his dark eyelashes flutter against his cheekbones, and every so often, he glances up at her. It’s only when he presses the flat of his tongue against her and crooks his fingers that she _understands_.

She comes once like that, then again, a shorter, sharper peak, before she takes Bellamy by the hair and tugs, her thighs instinctively twitching together. He pulls back, but doesn’t go far, resting his cheek on her thigh. When he looks up at her now, there’s a satisfied look in his eyes. Smug. Like he’s accomplished something.

She forces her jellylike legs to move, using her thighs to muscle his shoulders over so that he has little choice but to roll onto his back. “Take off your pants,” she says, and he obeys, still looking far too pleased with himself. Although she hadn’t asked him to, he takes it all off, and she allows herself a second—only a second—to look him over before she moves, straddling his legs again like she had that morning.

She thinks about using her mouth on him, or about taking him inside her, but she’s not in the mood to be given a lesson, as both of those things would necessarily be. She uses her hand instead, keeping the pace slow this time, her eyes on him as she takes note of what makes his breath hitch.

“Echo,” he says after a few minutes, almost petulant, his jaw clenched. She has mercy on him, finally; she leans down to kiss him, and that’s how he comes, with his mouth open under hers.

He’s quiet for a few seconds afterwards, eyes closed, as though resting. He opens his eyes just in time to see her raise her hand to her mouth and, curious, lick one of her fingers. “Fuck,” he says, in a tone of startled awe. Then he starts laughing.

Echo stiffens, but Bellamy shakes his head, sobering quickly but still smiling. “I’m not laughing at you,” he says. His hands are again at her sides, circling gently, like he’s trying to soothe a spooked animal. She lets herself be soothed, for now. “It’s just—I don’t know, disbelief? It’s been a long fucking day.”

“Yes,” Echo agrees, laughing herself at his choice of words, and maybe in disbelief, too. “It has.”

* * *

Echo wakes before the lights begin to rise for the day. The clock on Bellamy’s bedside table reads that it is only 04:35, well over two hours before anyone else will begin stirring about the ship. That’s fortunate enough; it minimizes her chances of being seen. She had not intended to fall asleep here, but she had also made no effort to prevent it.

Bellamy, next to her in the darkness, is a warm, still lump under the blankets. He lies on his stomach, his back to her, but she can tell by the slow, even pace of his breathing that he’s still asleep.

After a second’s thought, she leans over and brushes her lips against the dark curls at the side of his head. He murmurs and shifts, perhaps closer to wakefulness than she’d thought, but she doesn’t wait to find out. She rises, slipping on her shirt, leggings, and boots silently; she can’t find her underclothes, and looking for them would necessitate creeping around his room in the dark, so she forsakes them, at least for the time being. When she carefully unlocks the door and slips out into the slightly more brightly lit corridor, Bellamy has gone still again.

She returns to her room only to fetch fresh clothes before she heads to the showers; trying to sleep would be futile, and her bed would feel cold and too spacious, the way it did when she first began sleeping in it. Once she’s clean, she makes her way to the sparring area. There’s no one to spar with yet, of course, but she sits on the floor and goes through her stretches anyway, then takes the time to center herself, to meditate as best she can. This is the hardest place she could have chosen to try clearing her mind, after what happened here only a day ago; perhaps that’s why she chooses it, as a challenge for herself. It’s either that or sentiment, an idea she resists.

She’s still meditating when the others begin to trickle in, yawning and bleary-eyed. Echo is an early riser by habit, but Monty is one by necessity; he must begin breakfast. Harper wanders in not long after, then Raven, then Bellamy, then Emori, and finally Murphy. Bellamy doesn’t smile fully when he sees her at the table, but the corners of his eyes crinkle, which says enough.

“You’re in a good mood this morning,” Raven comments, looking at Bellamy over the rim of her cup, which she proceeds to drain.

“I’m sorry, is that not allowed?” Bellamy asks, accepting the bowl Monty passes him with a nod of thanks.

“It’s a miracle worth pointing out,” Raven says, which makes Bellamy snort.

Bellamy is in a good mood all morning, she notes—and she is, too. For all that she doesn’t want to think about what will happen when he eventually needs to talk about this—and he will, she knows him too well to expect otherwise—it’s intoxicating, this lightness she feels as they spar, and terrifying all at once. They can’t say anything out of the ordinary, because Murphy and Emori linger at the table to pass the time, apparently bored enough to watch them fight but not bored enough to train themselves. But it doesn’t matter, because he knows, and she knows, and that’s more than enough for now.

This, she realizes, is why people do what she and Bellamy have done—are doing—whatever it is. It feels too good to stop. 

She doesn’t see him again for much of the day, outside of in passing, because Raven asks her to come help with a project she’s working on—she mostly needs Echo for physical labor, carrying boxes and heavy strips of metal back and forth in her workshop, which Echo doesn’t mind. But her good mood holds all the way through the day, through dinner and the poker game that follows, which she deems unwise to skip after she’d begged off the night before.

It’s only afterwards, when everyone is drifting off to bed, that a pang of nerves hits. Bellamy leaves the room before she does, having folded long before the game ends, but it’s only now that Echo realizes she doesn’t have a plan.

She’s not sure whether she should just go to Bellamy’s room or not—and if so, when? If there’s an etiquette for this sort of thing, she doesn’t know it. Last night—like the morning before it—was completely unplanned, at least by her; she’ll have to figure things out as she goes along, then.

Raven, Murphy, and Emori walk with her down the hallway as they all head to their respective bedrooms, so Echo’s choice is made for her. She steps into her room, shuts the door, and begins to count. By thirty, the corridor has gone silent; she counts for another thirty seconds, then slips back out into the hallway.

It takes Bellamy about five seconds to open the door. When he does, she realizes he’s in his nightclothes, bare feet and a holey shirt and thick gray pants. He does not, however, look surprised to see her. His expression is in fact just neutral enough to take her by surprise.

“Sorry,” she says, mouth suddenly dry. “Were you sleeping?”

“No,” he says, and the corner of his mouth lifts, like he’s trying not to smile. He steps aside, and she enters, silently relieved, even though it still bothers her to be laughed at, sometimes. He gestures at the bed, where a glowing tablet lies, having apparently been set aside when he got up. “Just working.”

“Right,” she says. He spends a lot of his free time writing, she knows, on that tablet; committing what happens to them to history, even on days not worth remembering. He’s read things to her before, usually on days when something’s actually happened, like a solar flare or Ark maintenance, to get her opinion on the accuracy of his words. “On what?”

“Nothing at all,” Bellamy says, looking at her from where he stands, barely a foot of space between them. His eyebrows are slightly raised and have been for the duration of this interaction; he looks amused, and _good_ , and the lurch of tenderness she feels in her chest is certainly not new, but it infuriates her all the same. “It’s been a pretty slow day, don’t you think?”

She doesn’t dignify this with a response. He doesn’t seem surprised at all when she kisses him; his hands find her hips, the small of her back, too easily for surprise. For a moment they stand there, kissing, and then she remembers herself and pulls him toward the bed.

Slow is right. Bellamy seems to want to take his time, which is precisely the opposite of what Echo wants. He takes forever to peel her clothes off her, so she does it herself; he shifts positions when she tries to untie the knot at the waistband of his pants. When she attempts to roll him over onto his back, he squeezes her thighs lightly. “Hey,” he says, voice low. “You in a hurry?”

She stills, looking at him with wide eyes for a second, before she forces her expression to go neutral. He meets her gaze evenly. “No,” she says, when she realizes he’s not going to comply without an answer. “Why wait?”

He opens his mouth, then hesitates. Echo feels suddenly cool, like a draft has blown from the ventilation shafts over their heads. She has been foolish, perhaps, to think that what had happened yesterday was the beginning of—a pattern, at the very least. She shouldn’t have shown so much of herself by coming to him.

She lifts herself off him, but he grabs her wrist before she can move to the edge of the bed. “Hey,” he says. “Don’t shut down on me.”

When she looks over at him, half-startled and half-annoyed, he gentles his grip. “I feel like I can’t get enough, too,” he says, taking her by surprise. “Like everything that feels good might—get taken away from me. Maybe that doesn’t make sense. But I keep telling myself there’s no need to rush, because there’s nothing up here but time.”

He rubs her wrist while speaking, the pressure just heavy enough that she knows he’s doing it unconsciously, rather than in an attempt at seduction. She softens, because it’s hard not to, when he looks at her with his eyes warm like that. “It makes sense.”

Perfect sense, actually, which is sort of frustrating, that he can explain everything so well. But she doesn’t fight it when he leans up and kisses her, instead easing back down to lie beside him on the bed. They kiss for what feels like a long time, hands roaming every so often; this time, when she tries to take off his pants, he lets her. When he puts his fingers between her legs, she sighs almost with relief, but he doesn’t touch her like he wants to make her come. It takes her a few moments to realize that he’s teasing her, bringing her close only to ease back at the last moment.

“Bellamy,” she says, feeling feverish. “I want—”

“Yeah?” he murmurs, between biting kisses at her neck which are going to leave marks, but she doesn’t care, she’s never cared less.

Part of her still balks at the idea of asking for it, and though she knows it is the most weak and childish part of her, she heeds it. Still, he can’t mistake her meaning when she pulls him fully against her, her legs on either side of his hips.

His gaze flits over her face once, but he’s too merciful to question her now. “Okay,” he says, hands moving to her waist. “Yeah.”

They don’t speak again until he’s inside her, both breathing short and holding still now, their foreheads knocking slightly when either of them shifts even a little. It’s strange at first, but not in a bad way, strange in a way that makes her voice sound floaty and almost foreign when she says, “Bellamy.” She kisses him, and he groans, and doesn’t hesitate any longer.

Echo understands now why Bellamy’s been teasing her all this time, because when he begins to move she’s so worked up that it feels like electricity running through her, like the time she accidentally touched the metal tip of a wire when she was helping Raven rewire electrical panels. She tries to muffle herself, distantly conscious of ears just on the other side of the wall, but his head is so close to her own that he must be able to hear her, regardless.

“Yeah?” he says, like he’s reading her mind. His voice is gritty enough that she shivers. “Does it feel good? How I’m fucking you?”   

She flushes, swallows, tugs at his hair where one of her hands has found a home. “Don’t—talk like that.”

He grins at her briefly, his face close, so close. He must be able to tell how weak-willed that protest was, a knee-jerk response to something that can only be called a shameful indulgence. “I think you like it,” he says, still moving slowly enough to make her legs quake at his sides. “In fact, I know you do.”

She doesn’t bother to fight it, for now, only squeezing her thighs and urging him on, until he finally picks up speed, snapping his hips against her as she rocks up against him mindlessly. When he works his hand between them and presses his thumb against her, mumbling _gonna make you come_ and _that’s right, please, fuck_ , she comes, halfway delirious under him.

Bellamy doesn’t stop, but he does slow, which is good, too. Just rocks into her, the muscles of his back tense under her hands. She licks the shell of his ear in the moment before he comes, and he shudders, then goes still.

It takes her a moment to realize how thoroughly she’s clinging to him, arms tight around his shoulders and legs cinched around his middle. She thinks about letting go, thinks about getting embarrassed, and decides it can wait. Their foreheads are still brushing, very lightly; his eyes are closed, his breath evening out. That tenderness has gripped her again, but it doesn’t hurt anymore.

“Alright?” she asks after a moment.

He huffs a laugh, tickling her cheeks. “Feels like I should be asking you that.”

He eases back and off slightly, and she lets him go, although that does ache, a little. He must read this on her face, or maybe he just knows, because he says, “I’m not going anywhere.”

She watches as Bellamy leans to reach over to the bedside table, then picks up a cup of water and offers it to her. She murmurs her thanks, takes it, and sips briefly, before passing it back to him. As she watches him take a long draught of the lukewarm water, Echo takes stock of things. She feels sticky all over, wrung-out like a wet cloth, but for now, she doesn’t think anything could feel unpleasant.

He looks over at her then, expression thoughtful, and something about the way she looks must please him, because he leans down and kisses her briefly. “If you liked that,” he says lightly, easing back down next to her, “there’s a whole lot of other things we can do.”   

Echo rolls her eyes at this, but allows it when Bellamy eases her against his chest, like he’s afraid this might be what scares her off. She’s not naïve, whatever he may think—she knows of many things they could do, so many times they would lose count.

The possibilities are almost endless; the thought makes her smile.


End file.
